


Magpie and the Ghouls

by NuMo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fanfic for a kitten rock band, Gen, dragon puppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:09:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: A friend of mine rescued a cat in 2017 - a very pregnant cat lady. Her kittens were named Magpie and the Ghouls by someone. Then someone else pointed out that that was a fantastic name for a rock band. I agreed and this plot bunny was formed.Also, dragon puppies need to be in everything. And while the dragon puppy in question is a somewhat older puppy that the word 'puppy' usually applies, all puppies are puppies and will always be puppies.





	Magpie and the Ghouls

Once upon a time there were four people. Well, of course in the whole world there were more people, but our story is about these four people. They lived with their mother and three more people in an apartment. 

They were young and didn’t know many things yet, but this they knew: they wanted to be a rock band. Some knowledge you are born with, and that was theirs. They also already knew the name of their rock band – Magpie and the Ghouls. Thus, their names: Magpie, the biggest Ghoul, the smolest Ghoul, and the middlest Ghoul. 1

They also knew what rock was – anything that wasn’t a person, or that you couldn’t eat. “Just imagine it,” Magpie exclaimed (they hardly ever said something when they could exclaim it), “music that has all these things in it!” 

“But what about mom and the other people?” the biggest Ghoul asked. 

“They’ll be in it too!” Magpie reassured them. “Rock music can be anything we say it is.” They nodded decisively, and the biggest Ghoul and the smolest Ghoul and the middlest Ghoul were glad to have learned this.

“You can’t be a rock band without instruments,” the mom-like person who was not their mom said. Magpie and the Ghouls knew a few things about this person, too: she was a she – apparently something you learned about yourself at some point in your life. And she didn’t like Magpie and the Ghouls very much. But their mom and the other two people liked Magpie and the Ghouls, and so Magpie and the Ghouls learned that some people liked you and other people didn’t, and that was an important lesson, their mom said.

“Instruments!” Magpie cried. “We will find instruments!” And they raced off together. 

“What are instruments?” Magpie asked the three Ghouls when they were in the room that had the big soft rock.

“I don’t know,” said the middlest Ghoul.

“I don’t know,” said the biggest Ghoul.

“I don’t know,” said the smolest Ghoul.

“I don’t think they’re things you eat,” said the middlest Ghoul. “We have never eaten an instrument, have we?”

They all thought hard. Then they all shook their heads. 

“Then they’re either people or rocks,” said the biggest Ghoul. 

“I know where we can find all kinds of rocks!” Magpie exclaimed. “Follow me!” 

For a long time, they looked very hard in all the places Magpie showed them, and in all the places the smolest Ghoul knew, and in all the places the biggest Ghoul knew, and in all the places the middlest Ghoul knew. The people in the apartment helped by opening many doors whenever there were closed doors (which the biggest Ghoul in particular found to be an untenable state of things in general). They found many things, but nothing that was an instrument. 

“We have searched everywhere!” Magpie cried. “And we haven’t found any instruments!”

“Not everywhere,” the middlest Ghoul said. “We haven’t looked in the room with the big soft rock yet.”

“Let’s go back!” Magpie exclaimed at once.

They climbed all over, under, and across the big soft rock, and didn’t find an instrument. Then they climbed all over, under, and across every other rock in that room, and didn’t find an instrument. Finally the smolest Ghoul, who was good at this, found a door that hadn’t been open before. They called the others loudly – it wasn’t only Magpie who had a good voice, after all – and they stood before it and peered at it. 

No one wanted to be the first to go through it, because this was the first time that anyone of them had ever seen this door open. But since they were quite young yet, they didn’t know what dangers could lurk behind doors previously unopened, and so they looked at each other, nodded at each other, and then tumbled through it all at the same time.

It was a very, very dark place, and they kept close together. Not simply so close that they could smell each other, but so close that they could feel each other, which is much closer indeed. They were so close together, in fact, that if one of them maybe trembled just a little, they couldn’t even tell who. 

The light that had followed them through the door had long since gone, and the floor was uneven and dusty. The biggest Ghoul sneezed, and the dust they stirred caused the middlest Ghoul to sneeze, and that dust caused the smolest Ghoul to sneeze, and _that_ dust caused Magpie to sneeze. And then they sneezed all together, and when they all opened their eyes again, there was light ahead of them.

“Light!” shouted Magpie and ran towards it. The three Ghouls followed them. It got cooler as they ran, but it also got lighter; and after all that darkness, light was welcome even if it came with a chill. 

The Ghouls were as eager to get to the light as Magpie was, and so they tumbled through this door the same way they had through the other: all at the same time. Only behind this door was a ledge almost as tall as Magpie and the Ghouls were, and so they tumbled not just through, but down as well, crying out in alarm as they rolled over one another on the chilly stone floor. 

The middlest Ghoul was the first to find their feet, and to announce the fact, they sneezed again. There was a really very odd smell in the air. 

“Have you ever smelled a smell like this before?” they asked the others.

“No,” said the biggest Ghoul.

“No,” said the smolest Ghoul. 

“No!” exclaimed Magpie. “It’s weird! Like the food mom says isn’t food at all, but poison.”

“Yes!” the smolest Ghoul agreed. “The stuff that the big people used to clean our messes with when we were very very smol.” They all wrinkled their noses and flicked their ears, both in embarrassment at the thought they had ever been so smol that they couldn’t clean up their own messes, and in astonishment that there were people who wouldn’t use their tongues to clean.

“Yes!” the middlest Ghoul agreed. “But it doesn’t smell of mess here, only of that stuff.”

“I think it comes from over there,” the biggest Ghoul said, and looked towards a corner of the room. 

There was a big pile of blankets there, and now that the biggest Ghoul had pointed it out, they all noticed that the smell came from there. 

“But why would anyone make blankets smell like that?” Magpie wailed. “Blankets are soft and cozy and they should smell nice, not like that!” And yet they started to walk over to the pile, tail and whiskers aloft and quivering. The others followed them.  
Suddenly, the pile moved. The smallest Ghoul squeaked and jumped back, and then, when the pile didn’t move again, got embarrassed and washed their shoulder briskly for a moment. That’s why they didn’t see that the others had been just as surprised, and now were just as embarrassed. 

And then the pile moved again, even more than before, and made a sound. Magpie and the Ghouls stared at it, eyes wide and unblinking. 

“I say we go back,” the middlest Ghoul said, and the smolest Ghoul was glad, because they felt the same way. But after squeaking and jumping, they hadn’t wanted to say anything. The pile was easily four times as tall as they were, and could have swallowed all of them without showing a bulge, they thought.

“Never! I say we pounce!” yelled Magpie, and promptly did so with a flying tackle. 

When they landed almost at the top of the pile, it made another sound – similar, but lower in pitch. Then the middlest Ghoul, who liked pouncing very much, landed in another part of the pile and it made yet another sound, higher in pitch. 

The smolest Ghoul took a hesitant step on one end of the pile, and it didn’t make any sound at all. Emboldened, but also confused, they started climbing it – and suddenly it did make a sound! Startled, the smolest Ghoul jerked back. But their claws were still hooked into the blanket they’d been on, and so the blanket came with them – and revealed two large, liquid, brown eyes. “Ya!” squealed the smolest Ghoul, and scampered backwards.

“Hrrrrmmm?” the pile said, and moved again. The blanket slid away further. The smolest Ghoul could now see a pair of white eyebrows, and the beginning of what seemed to be a very long nose. 

“Uh…” they quavered, and then pulled themselves together. They might be the smolest Ghoul, but no one would ever say they weren’t also the fiercest! “Hi!” they shouted.

By then, the others had noticed what was going on, and were clambering towards the smolest Ghoul – and every step that they took woke more sounds, some higher, some lower, some longer, some shorter. They all rallied around the smolest Ghoul, and then shouted in unison: “Hi!”

And then the pile shook itself, and moved itself, and Magpie and the Ghouls all tumbled off it, and all of the blankets slid away, and the smell was suddenly much, much stronger. In front of them stood a person! They were three times as long as the biggest Ghoul from whisker tip to tail tip, and they had a much longer nose with much larger nostrils, and they didn’t have fur, but they were purring – or something very much like it. Rumbling, anyway. 

“Hi,” they said, in a very soft voice. “And who might you be?”

“We’re Magpie and the Ghouls!” exclaimed Magpie proudly. “I’m Magpie, and this is the biggest Ghoul and the smolest Ghoul and the middlest Ghoul.”

“We’re a rock band,” the middlest Ghoul added. 

“And we’re looking for instruments!” the biggest Ghoul said.

“And… and who are you?” the smolest Ghoul, who felt like they had to contribute something as well, asked nervously. 

“A quest!” the person boomed, much louder than before. “I shall help you!” They shook themselves all over, and then slowly drew themselves up to a proud and tall stance. “I… am a dragon,” they announced. “A swamp dragon, to be exact. And my name is Vertogast Thunderthroat Kohlacker of Sto Lat, although for some reason most people call me Fergus.”

“Hi Fergus,” Magpie and the Ghouls called out. 

Fergus chuckled. “I see why you are a rock band,” they said. “Your voices are unique, individually as well as taken together. With the right instrumental accompaniment, you shall go far. And I shall help you find it!” They deflated a little, and coughed. The smell grew a little more pronounced. “Alas, I am not as young as I was,” they said and laid down on the nearest blanket, neatly crossing their front paws. “Therefore, I shall offer my knowledge, instead of my arms. What is it you seek – you called it ‘instru-’”  
But the foreign word must have lodged wrong in Fergus’ throat. They coughed again, and again, and _again_ , until the smolest Ghoul, who had once seen the second largest person do something similar to the largest person, stepped around Fergus’ front paws to their midsection, reached as tall as they would go, and _smacked_ Fergus on their back – or as close as the smolest Ghoul could reach. 

This did two things – it stopped Fergus’ coughing2, and it produced another sound. 

“Your tummy!” the middlest Ghoul said. “Your tummy makes sounds!” And they promptly ran up and smacked another part of Fergus’ midriff. And yes, there was yet another sound. “Um,” they said then, “does that hurt?”

“No,” Fergus chuckled. “I have scales, you see?” And they preened a little so that Magpie and the Ghouls, who all now were standing at Fergus’ side, could see. “You have retractable claws, so as long as you keep those sheathed, I’ll be fine.” 

“Awesome!” Magpie yelled, and leapt onto Fergus with all four paws landing in different places, making four different sounds. 

“Let’s rock!” the biggest Ghoul shouted, and butted Fergus’ flank with their head, which produced a less pronounced, but also very pleasant bass sound.

Magpie and the Ghouls were in heaven as they pounced around on Fergus – and Fergus was in heaven because they were getting the massage of a lifetime. 

And this is the story of how Magpie and the Ghouls befriended a dragon, found an instrument, and learned how to give the massage of a lifetime all in the same day.

**Author's Note:**

> 1They knew their names, but they didn’t know spelling and grammar very well.
> 
> 2Although probably more from surprise than anything else.


End file.
